Europe Bound
In less than 9 hours I’m leaving on a nearly 4 week long vacation to Europe. I’ll be meeting my mother, sister, aunt and uncle in Rome. From there we’ll tour the city for a few days and then visit Venice, Florence, and San Marino. After that Allison heads back to Vancouver and the rest of us will be going on a Mediterranean cruise with stops in Italy, Greece and Turkey. That will be 3 new countries for me! Sounds like a dream, eh?
I have to admit that over the last week or two I’ve been feeling a little guilty about the fact that I’m taking such a long vacation. I haven’t had as productive a summer as I might have liked so for some reason I feel as though I don’t “deserve” to take a month off. However, I am going so the only thing to do is enjoy myself and come back to Seattle prepared to kick some serious research butt in the fall.
The trip is going to force me to take time off from training too. I’ve been running a fair bit lately and I’m sure my body could use some time to rest and mend some minor aches and pains. I may not run at all while I’m away but I am brining my shoes and one set of running clothes in case I want to jump on a treadmill on the cruise ship. I’m hoping that doing lots of walking will keep me in reasonable shape so I’ll be ready to start training for the Seattle half marathon when I return.
I may or may not be posting while I’m abroad (my sister is already in Europe and she managed to post this morning) but rest assured there will be lots of pictures and stories to share when I get home. Ciao!
Race History: Calendar Date by WAVA percentage
One of the things I love about running is that I get to record my progress and make graphs! I was inspired by this blog to create an graph of my age graded race results. I believe that age grading is meant to be used to compare results of runners of different ages but I like to use it to compare results across distances.
I used this calculator to convert all of my race times into WAVA percentages and then plotted them by calendar time. There’s a nice upward progression. The “2006 Half Goal” corresponds to my goal of running 1:59:59 at the Seattle half marathon at the end of November. Compared to my most recent two race results it’s a bit lower on the WAVA percentage. This may mean it’s a somewhat conservative goal but that’s fine by me.
Race Report: Shoreline Rotary 5K
This morning I ran the Celebrate Shoreline Rotary Run 5K. This is a small community 5K/10K run – I didn’t see any bib numbers in the 300’s. For those of you not familiar with Seattle geography, Shoreline is a sort of bedroom community just north of Seattle. I often play ultimate games on various fields in Shoreline.
The race was a mass start with the 10K runners lined up just in front of the 5K runners. The 5K route was the first half of the 10K route. I started near the front of the 5K runners and spent the first half kilometer passing the slower 10K runners. I say slower but they were still moving quickly especially considering they were going to run twice as far as I was. I loved that since the field was so small there were really no bunching issues like at the start of larger races. The course was marked by kilometers and miles. Because my goal was to run under 25 minutes I decided to pace myself by the kilometer markers. All I had to do was 5 sub 5 minute kilometers to make my goal. Plus the kilometer markers come faster than the miles so you get more feedback en route.
My splits were 4:41.49 / 4:44.00 / 4:50.64 / 4:44.28 / 4:55.08. If you add that all up my time was 23:56! Yippee!
That makes my average pace 7:42 min/mile or 4:47 min/km. I am thrilled with my result. It’s a full minute faster than my goal and I took 3 minutes and 39 seconds off my PB from last February. I guess all the miles and the speedwork and tempo runs are paying off.
5K training – Week 3 – 500 miles
| 14/08 | 0 miles | Rest day, evening ultimate game |
| 15/08 | 3 miles | Slow & easy, emphasis on slow |
| 16/08 | 5 miles | Speedwork incl 3×800m at 3:29/3:35/3:37 (exact same splits as 2 weeks ago, freaky!) |
| 17/08 | 0 miles | Rest day, evening ultimate game (the fake taper) |
| 18/08 | 0 miles | Rest day (the real taper) |
| 19/08 | 5 km | RACE DAY – 23:56 (PB) |
| 20/08 | 3 miles | Slow & easy, recover run |
| Total | 14 miles | YTD: 509 miles |
[16/08] This morning, halfway through my second 800m sprint I hit the year-to-date 500 mile mark. Woo hoo. I repeat, woo hoo. Just for some perspective, the total length of the 401 in Ontario is 506 miles (815 km). So basically this year I’ve run from Windsor to the Quebec border. That’s a long way!
Even with half marathon training this fall there’s no way I’m going to hit 1000 miles this year but I expect to hit 1000 km (621 miles) around the end of October.
[18/08] Tomorrow is race day. I didn’t run yesterday (although I did play an ultimate game) or today because I want to be well rested for the race. I’ve been hydrating all day and I’m hoping the brownies I had for dessert count as carbo loading. My primary goal is to run the 5K in under 25 minutes. If that doesn’t pan out then I’m aiming for sub 27 minutes since that was one of my New Year’s goals. If I have a bad day and neither of those seem attainable than I’m just going to relax and try to have fun. I think it’s going to be a blast.
The now traditional new camera bathroom mirror self portrait
For my birthday in 2000 my parents bought me my first digital camera, a Canon Powershot S10. Six years later there are cellphones with cameras more powerful than it! This year I upgraded, big time, and got a Nikon Coolpix P4 for my birthday. It arrived last week and I’m very excited about my new toy. It has vibration reduction! And it’s tiny! I have lots to read and learn but once I’d gotten the battery charged I decided to stick with tradition* and take a picture of myself with my new camera in my bathroom mirror. So here I am, in 2000 and 2006.
| August 13, 2000 | August 15, 2006 |
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* If you’ve only done something once I’m not sure it counts as a tradition. But now that I’ve taken the picture twice I’m pretty sure it does!
The best CSA box so far
All week I’ve been anticipating the arrival of my CSA box. I think this could be the best CSA box so far: Eggplant, Zucchini, Collard Greens, Gypsy Sweet Peppers, Green Beans, Chioggia Beets (x2), Yellow Carrots, Nectarines, Yellow Peaches, Apricots, Red Potatoes, Shiro Plums. All the produce was either grown on Full Circle Farm or within Washington state.
I’m very excited about all the fruit. I think I’m going to bake some sort of a multi-fruit crisp. My only dissapointment was the size of the eggplant. I’ve literally been waiting all year for eggplant to come in season. I had great plans to make Baba Ghanouj but I don’t think my little eggplant will get me far. Luckily eggplant is on sale this week at my local grocery store so I’m going to make Baba Ghanouj anyway!
5K training – Week 2 – Target Paces
| 07/08 | 0 miles | Rest day, IMA softball game, IMA ultimate game |
| 08/08 | 3 miles | Slow & easy |
| 09/08 | 5 miles | Tempo run, 3 miles @ 8:22 pace, legs felt a little heavy |
| 10/08 | 0 miles | Rest day, evening ultimate game |
| 11/08 | 3 miles | Slow & easy, feeling a little under the weather (sore throat) |
| 12/08 | 0 miles | Rest day |
| 13/08 | 7 miles | Long run @ 9:52 miles/min, felt great |
| Total | 18 miles | YTD: 495 miles |
[13/08] Well I survived the week: conference, work, softball, ultimate, running and all. I feel pretty good about the paces I did for both my tempo run (8:22 mile/min) and my long run (9:52 mile/min) this week. They’re both just under the paces recommended when you put my 8K time into the Runner’s World Training Pace Calculator:
Your easy run training pace is: 10:08 min/mile Your tempo run training pace is: 8:28 min/mile Your maximum oxygen training pace is: 7:38 min/mile Your speed form training pace is: 7:04 min/mile Your long run training pace is: 10:08-11:25 min/mile Your Yasso 800s training pace is: 3:55 min/800
I don’t necessairly need target paces for all my runs but I do like having them for speedwork and tempo runs. It’s also good to know that I could be doing my long runs at a slower pace.
This upcoming week could be pretty exciting. Depending on how I organize my week I will break the year-to-date 500 mile mark on either Tuesday or Wednesday. Plus on Saturday I’m running the 5K race and I can almost taste a sub 25 minute finish!
Intramural Hall of Fame
Last night both the softball and ultimate frisbee intramural teams I play on suffered heartbreaking losses in the semi-finals of playoffs. This marks the end or an era for our intramural teams. Many of our players are graduating and even though we can rebuild and continue to play it won’t be the same next year. So in honour of our great championships of past quarters I present to you my own intramural hall of fame.
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| Ultimate Spring 2004 | Softball Summer 2004 |
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| Ultimate Summer 2004 | Ultimate Spring 2005 |
| No Photo |  |
| Softball Spring 2005 | Ultimate Summer 2005 |
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| Softball Spring 2006 |
I can’t believe I don’t have a picture of our Spring 2005 Softball team. There’s a photo hanging on the wall in the IMA so I may go down and take a picture of that just so I can have the complete set!
5K training – Week 1 – Hot, but not East Coast Hot
| 31/07 | 0 miles | Birthday rest day, IMA softball game |
| 01/08 | 3 miles | Slow & easy, evening ultimate game |
| 02/08 | 0 miles | Rest day |
| 03/08 | 5 miles | Speedwork incl 3×800m at 3:29/3:35/3:37 |
| 04/08 | 0 miles | Rest day |
| 05/08 | 7 miles | Avg 9:32 mile/min, felt more like a “tempo run” than a “long run” |
| 06/08 | 3 miles | Recovery jog, slow & easy |
| Total | 18 miles | YTD: 477 miles |
This was a pretty good week even though Saturday’s “long run” didn’t go quite as planned. My goal pace was 10:10 min/mile. Up until now my long runs have been done around 11:00 min/mile so I had in my head that I had to run faster than I normally would have. I sort of over shot (or under shot??) the pace and ended up running at an average of 9:32 min/mile. I waited until mid-morning to run so it was warmer than I’m used to. It wasn’t “East Coast Hot” but the sun was out in full force so between the pace and heat I was toast when I got home. Fortunately CBC was showing the Edmonthon World Cup Triathalon so I watched that while I stretched, hydrated and ate to recover. Then I took a nap!
7 days of madness
The next seven days, from tomorrow to next Thursday, are going to sheer be madness. First there’s a one day conference tomorrow in honour of one of my professors. Then the five day Statistical extravaganza of JSM that starts on Sunday. We’re also in the middle of intramural play-offs right now so I could have up to two softball games and two ultimate games. Plus we have two city league ultimate games schedule next week. And I think I have something like 20 miles of running scheduled for next week. Clearly, something is going to have to give!
I’m going to be early tonight…